


Is a Light a Stick or a Rope?

by orphan_account



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games), P.T | Silent Hills, Silent Hill (Video Game Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 10:38:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9816137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He finally got the door open.





	

The front door opens with a soft click and he is very careful not to look back or open the door too wide as he slips out.

Under his shirt, he can feel the adhesives holding his bandage pull a bit. The sharp pull against his skin, and the sound of his tags against the door, almost distracts him from the sharp clatter of footsteps behind him, but he is out of the door, slamming it shut, before the sounds get too close.

He takes the steps two at a time. Five full steps and one weird half step that was badly covered to even out the path to the door.

The radio clicks on just as his flashlight died. He popped out the batteries and replaced them with a pair in his pocket.

"You're awfully twitchy for an adult." He sighs and while he doesn't tune out the voice, he knows better than to acknowledge it. By now. "It's not like Mikke, or Hide, or Guy were back there. Which one was it that hurt you?"

He coughs a little. It was a wet cough and he instinctively put his hand to his bandage. He lost his inhaler. "Or was his name John?"

He zips up his jacket. It helps, but not very much. He needed an inhaler. If he remembered correctly, there was a corner drug store about a couple of blocks over... unless it had closed down. "You knew _a lot_ of Johns."

He didn't twitch, but he tightened his jaw, earning him a plastic laugh from the voice on the radio. "Or was it the lovely Dr. Folk, who tried to strangle you and send her gim-- husband to keep you company?"

He sighs but doesn't reply. She'd been pissed that he'd figured out the coordinate issue before her. After all, he was the just the mouse. Speaking of, he thought he heard one scurrying around. If he could hear one, even with it as quiet as it was, he knew it had to be something larger. Meaner.

More hands on. "Be _sides_ , you seemed to be getting along with the guest our dear parents invited over just _fine_. Do you do it often?"

Mikke had some interesting ideas about what was socially acceptable when he was off duty. As if in response, the voice on the radio sighed over-dramatically. "You run away and what? It takes you over a decade to get your ass in and out of college. It's not like you had to _negotiate_ anything with your professors. It's not like your co-workers know anything."

He picks up the pace, even as he feels a pressure in his chest warning him of an incoming fit. He needed to stay calm. It only triggered when he was exceptionally stressed... But it was well passed being too late for that, and he vaguely recalled having at least one earlier. "But hasn't that geologist fellow been looking at you strangely lately?"

The pharmacy's neon light is still shining, which worries him more than it being off would. He can feel the tightening in his throat. "But is he looking at you how dad did? Or how _mom_ did? Does it matter, do you think?"

Physical or sexual? He'd been asked that once by an insensitive asshole of a cop. Were you more likely to be physically or sexually abused by your parents? Apparently, in her mind, being a traumatized and guilt ridden 13 year old wasn't enough. He said he didn't know. His parents looked at him differently.

He knew what his father's look had meant, after the fact.

He didn't speculate on his mother's.

The door to the pharmacy was unlocked, but to be on the safe side, he propped it open as he went in.

It slammed shut anyway. "You go so good with numbers and coordinates that they just _had_ to give you a job. Even if you're just a glorified _librarian_."

He stops dead in his tracks.

It's such a stupidly obvious, but obviously stupid idea. He knows the coordinates to the lab. They needed a field test. He was sure someone at the lab knew about this place.

He grabs a pack of sharpies, a toy that looked like it had some wiring in it, and a couple of nine volt batteries. He couldn't use the power cell in the device under his skin yet, that was dangerous. "What are you doing?"

But electrocuting himself was a-ok.

When he got to the back he carefully pulled himself over the counter. Inhaler first. "What. Are. You. Doing."

He placed the radio on the counter. In the distance, he could hear sirens start up. He didn't know which ones and he had no idea what they meant anymore. "Come. Back. Here."

He finds an inhaler matching his prescription, rips the box open, shakes the hell out of it, and takes his first puff. Coughs. Shakes it again. Takes another puff.

He dumps the inhaler on the counter. The radio is making all sorts of garbage and so he opens the backing up.

Inside is a fetus with baby doll feet.

He returns the backing.

Shoes. Socks. Jacket. Shirt. Pants.

He swore he wore underwear.

On his thigh was an inhumanely large, hand shaped bruise. "Shouldn't. You. Be. Running."

He puts his clothes on the counter and rips open the pack of sharpies. They were supposed to be black, but wrote in a deep red.

He wrote anyway. The entire sequence of start up and tuning calculations. He could feel a jolt from his stomach as his the tiny little implant in his brain realized he was manually starting the process. He entered current physical coordinates, but he couldn't figure out the time.

He left that open ended.

He closed out the equations and stood, a little wobbly from the changes in his brain's chemistry. He needed shears, tweezers, alcohol wipes, and a pair of sterile gloves.

He had to support himself on the counter. He nearly collapsed the first aid aisle. "Run. Hide. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. D--"

He tuned out the radio. The sirens were getting louder and one of them sounded distinctly like the Fold siren. For a moment, he can't really help it, he thinks about the movie _Event Horizon_.

He grabs a kit that seems like it has everything he might need in it. The device is still in motion, but now it's ticking down. It needed power and destination coordinates.

He strips a delicate wire out of the toy and hooks up the nine volts to each other.

He rips the bandage off with little more than a wince, his brain is preventing pain from registering, but he needed to hurry, or he'd feel the full brunt of his trip.

He puts a pair of gloves on and wipes the shears down in a half-assed attempt to sanitize them. He clips the ends of the horizontal axis on his stomach. It takes a moment for blood to even peek out at him, but he aggravates it by wiping down the tweezers and pulling out a pair of temporary "antenna".

He, with less care than he should, leans against the counter and attaches the nine volts to the antenna.

The radio is flat out screaming at him. How unfair he is. Running away.

Leaving his family all alone. Again.

Using his stomach, he picks his destination.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, this was based on the theory that "Norm" wasn't one of the fathers that killed their families, but an older sibling.
> 
> And while we're at it, let's just cross these two games over, just 'cause.
> 
> When Death Stranding comes out, I have every intention of revisiting the idea of a crossover/fusion between the two.


End file.
